


Nine

by Welcome_PleaseMakeYourselfComfortable



Category: One Piece
Genre: AO3 ilu but I will actually fistfight u over this, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, MY COMPUTER SHUT DOWN AND RESET AS I WAS EDITING THIS, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Starvation, Mentions of Vivi, SO IM DOING THIS AGAIN AND IM FUELLED WITH RAGED AND SPITE, Sanji Is Not A Vinsmoke, Sanji has Issues and is sad because He Is Sanji but don't worry we'll work thru it, Sanji-centric, mentions of cannibalism but only a little bit a tiny bit, only for a paragraph but I love her, thanks to the power of our lord and savior Luffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25304176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welcome_PleaseMakeYourselfComfortable/pseuds/Welcome_PleaseMakeYourselfComfortable
Summary: Sanji is nine and luckily dead, when a cannonball bursts through the ceiling and passes right through his body. He watches as the old man bellows at the strange newcomer and orders services in the kitchen in exchange for the damage to his restaurant. The weird straw hat wearing teen yells back at the geezer, and subsequently gets multiple kicks for his retaliation. Sanji’s baffled by him.Or: Sanji died of starvation. He learns to live.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Vinsmoke Sanji, Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates & Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 47
Kudos: 220





	Nine

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh, this is my first time writing and publishing a fanfiction haha.  
> I got sucked back into the OP fandom and revisited an old au of mine and then this happened.  
> Hope no one's too ooc, I worry about that a lot.  
> Hope you enjoy!

~_~_~

Sanji is nine years old when he wakes up to find that the gnawing hunger that had clawed at his stomach stopped. Well, not entirely. It was still there, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it did the days before. It kinda tickled.

The sun relentlessly beats down, causing waves of heat to rise from the damn rock he was stranded on. But, strangely enough, it doesn’t bother him like it used to.

What he does notice, is the strange feeling of… something. While the ~~horrible, terrible~~ hunger pains had greatly reduced, there was a weird sensation that replaced it. He noticed that the ocean’s waves beat at a steady rhythm. That the sea and sky wriggled and sighed with life and Sanji could _swear_ that the world was louder than it used to be.

Scratching his head, Sanji wonders if this is some kind of weird dream. Why isn’t he hungry anymore? Was it a miracle? Did he get so used to feeling hungry that he couldn’t feel it anymore? Nothing made sense!

In the corner of his eye, something shifts. Sanji quickly turns, wondering if a sea-bird landed to rest its wings. Maybe he could catch it and eat it. He hasn’t had anything to eat in… he doesn’t remember, but it doesn’t matter, not anymore. Not when he can finally **eat**.

He stops when he sees that it’s not a sea-bird, but the old geezer. Sanji huffs with a scowl.

 _Stupid pirate_. He thinks to himself as he stomps over to the slumped figure. _He tells me to stay on my side of the rock, but then he doesn’t even listen to his own rule. Jerk._

He opens his mouth to ask what the hell the older man was doing, when he sees what he was slumped over and freezes.

It was him, his own body, lying on the ground.

But

That didn’t make any sense.

Because he was right here.

But then why was the old shitty pirate next to his body, still and quiet-

Sanji reels back, choking on his breath ~~could he call it that anymore? Did the dead breathe? Oh GOD he was DEAD~~ and his head spins and his eyes water, the realisation hitting him harder than the waves that pushed him overboard on that very night.

He wasn’t, he couldn’t. Not when he hadn’t even gotten to sail out to see the sea of dreams. Not when he hadn’t even gotten to thank the stupid bastard of a pirate who gave up his leg to see him survive.

Not when he hadn’t gotten the chance to pay back the favor.

Sanji’s thoughts turn to the old man, wondering what he was going to do. Was he going to eat him? Use him as food to stave off the hunger? Maybe he would be happy, free of a brat who cost him his leg, only to die and become his next meal.

He turns, hands still tugging at his hair.

The old man is silent as he stares down at the small, cold body of a child.

~

And so, Sanji is now nine and **dead.**

~_~_~

Zeff hobbles into the infirmary and shuffles into his seat with a groan, limbs still weak and shaking. His body was slowly getting used to ingesting small amounts of food into his stomach, and the doctor was still fussing over his nutritional intake. He, personally, thought it to be a little silly, but it wasn’t as if he could complain. 85 days on that blasted rock and he was _alive, dammit_. He wasn’t about to throw that away anytime soon.

Speaking about being alive…

His ears were still ringing from the canons. The medics had given him the okay to attend the funeral, as depressing as it was. After all, the body they sent out to sea was quite young. _Too young._ Zeff sighs, wishing for a glass of whiskey or rum, and takes a glance at the side of his temporary bed.

The semi-transparent, wavering figure of the little boy they sent out to sea meets his eyes. He takes note of how the kid still looks as he was back at the rock. Zeff wishes he didn’t look like that.

_He was thin, with skin plastered on bones instead of flesh. Hollow, sunken eyes filtered through blond strands of hair, staring past the clouds and into the sun. He wondered what those dry, cracked lips were trying to say. He wondered if this was what he intended to lose._

Zeff shakes himself out of it.

“Oi, brat.” The kid snaps his head towards him. “When are you finally leaving to move on? Ghosts have no place in the world of the living.”

He gets a frustrated frown in response.

“I,” the kid begins, voice warbling and warping in strange tones, “I’ve tried, old man. But I can’t.”

“What, you got something to do before that or something? You looking for vengeance?”

A shuffle. “I don’t know.”

Zeff reaches for the pitcher and cup and pours a glass of water with shaky hands. “I can’t help you if you don’t know, and I’ve got better things to do then entertain a ghost boy. I’ve got a restaurant to open and run.” The water’s cold and soothing. His heart isn’t.

The kid’s swirly brow dips even further. He pays no mind.

 _He’ll live_ , Zeff thinks to himself. He’ll move on and go to heaven or whatever the hell kind of afterlife the kid believes in.

He reminds himself not to get attached. The dead cannot coexist with the living, after all.

~

Time trickles to a week, then the one turns into several and then into months. The kid’s still there, drifting past his room or the kitchen every so often.

He shouldn’t get attached.

“Oi, eggplant.” A chirp of indignation. “Get in here. I’ve seen you pick up stuff when you thought I wasn’t looking. I’m not blind, brat. You worked on that ship, right? Surely you know how to wash dishes.”

Zeff pretends not to see the kid’s confusion turn into barely disguised joy.

~_~_~

There’s a rumor going around about the Baratie. It’s a pretty famous floating restaurant that sails on the East Blue. The workers are rowdy and a little terrifying, but they’re excellent chefs nonetheless. The food is magnificent and the service is wonderful, if you pay nicely.

It’s also haunted. At least, that’s what everyone else but the owner will tell you.

The customers will tell you about tablecloths that would shift neatly into place by themselves. Lights that flicker and candles that flutter with no wind or breeze. The unfaithful mutter about wine stains and the stench of rotting fish that linger on their clothes. Some customers mention little extra treats, hidden underneath napkins. Children happily giggle secrets about magic candies that appear in pockets, if you’ve been especially good that day. Mothers with newborn children will remember moments where their crying babies would suddenly calm or laugh happily for no reason, as if someone was playing with them.

The ones that were hungry and penniless will whisper to you with shifting eyes, about meals that would suddenly appear in front of them after being thrown out. They were delicately plated and wonderfully filling. They’d recall a note, scrawled with fresh ink that left smears on fingertips, promising secrecy and wishing them to live for another day. They’d tell you with a smile about how they dined on secret meals, and left with both a full heart and stomach.

The workers at the restaurant will tell you that sometimes, they can hear the sound of cooking in the dead of night, down in the kitchens; the scent of spices and the taste of salt sifting onto kitchen countertops early in the morning. Filthy plates that stacked high in the sink will turn clean and dry on busy days, when no one pays much attention. Whispers about a stinging sensation, sending shudders up their spine, when a dish wasn’t up to par or when one would sneak out for a fight. The head chef knows everything that goes down in the kitchen, even when he isn’t there.

If you ask the owner, you’ll receive a scoff as his eyes linger on a corner of the room.

~_~_~

Sanji is nine and luckily dead, when a cannonball bursts through the ceiling and passes right through his body. He watches as the old man bellows at the strange newcomer and orders services in the kitchen in exchange for the damage to his restaurant. The weird straw hat wearing teen yells back at the geezer, and subsequently gets multiple kicks for his retaliation. Sanji’s baffled by him.

His crew’s weird too. There’s only three other members; a man with three swords, another man with a long nose, and a red-haired lady. Sanji’s baffled that he’s somehow thinking that he’s planning on sailing as a pirate with such scarce numbers – not to mention the fact that they apparently don’t have a chef or doctor. He's insane!

And the insanity continues when the scraggly man he secretly fed comes back to bring calamity to the doorsteps of the restaurant. Sanji sees the air thrum with tension, only to intensify when the hawk-eyed man cuts in, _literally_. Everything climbs higher and higher, like waves on a storm, while the strawhat’s swordsman goddamn **fights** hawkman, never backing down, and Sanji stares at the madness spilling in front of him and wonders _why? Why throw your entire life away? Why do you throw away your tomorrows in exchange for a crazy chance today? Why? You’re alive, shouldn’t that be enough?_

But, as mad as it all is, Sanji can’t look away at the swordsman – **Zoro** , the captain named **Luffy** screams – and his soul that beats from his bleeding body; _cracks lined with gold and ivory, ringing with a new purpose. He sees liquid bones melt into a sword that shakes and rattles in her white sheath, shouting wisps of old promises that leaves a searing, bitter flavour on his tongue._

He can’t look away, not at Luffy, whose soul rises into a crescendo mid battle, staring down at his opponent with burning eyes, before rushing in again and again, _sending bursts of light that spill onto splintered floorboards and into the sea_. He watches his shouts about living while plucking spears from still bleeding wounds with a _drip drip drip_. Zeff’s words about hesitation and conviction are drowned out by a single man, whose soul **sings** like ringing bells and combusts like **stars** , and all Sanji can wonder is _what would it be like to travel with someone like Luffy?_

~

Sanji can feel the call of All Blue rush back to him, thumping against his chest, as the gravelly voice of a shitty geezer tells him to not catch a cold.

He tells him that he’s stupid, because he can’t catch a cold.

Zeff pretends to not notice the tears that slide down both of their cheeks.

~_~_~

_With his dying breath, he dreams of a mystical ocean. His wish travels to the stars and drops back down to the earth, to the rock._

_Ten years later, he sets off with the Living to fulfill that wish, for an old man and a child that’s dead and gone._

~_~_~

There’s meat on the table!

Luffy drools and hoots with glee as he takes in the plates of food and MEAT that sit patiently, waiting to be devoured.

He was a little bummed out when the old chef guy didn’t join him. He wanted a nice chef of the sea, and owner Zeff was a cool pirate! His wooden leg did hurt though…

But putting that aside, there was food! And it was real! Not dream meat that never followed him when he woke up, but real, juicy meat! He could cry. Or laugh. Maybe both.

Luffy immediately begins scarfing down his breakfast while Yosaku nervously looks around the lounge. Eventually, he sits down and notices a piece of paper next to a - now empty - plate. He turns to Luffy, who’s stuffing food into his mouth like a squirrel.

“Uh, Luffy aniki?”

“Wazhup?” Luffy answers with his mouth full and suddenly shivers. Weird!

“I think this letter is for you.”

Yosaku nervously eyes the paper in his hand as Luffy chugs down his drink.

“What’s it say?”

There’s a brief shuffle as Yosaku fumbles with the paper, clears his throat, and reads.

“To the captain of the ship.” he begins. “My name is Sanji, and I’d like to be your chef. I’ve learnt how to cook for years now, and I know how to fight as well. In exchange, I want to follow you to the Grand Line and search for All Blue. It’s a mystical ocean where all four seas connect, which means all of the ocean’s fish are there too! It’s a dream that me and owner Zeff share. Please let me join your crew.”

Luffy swallows his mouthful of food and thinks.

So this Sanji guy knows owner Zeff? Come to think of it, didn’t the owner say something like, _take care of your chef_ , when he left? Maybe he was talking about Sanji.

Hmmm… Where is that guy anyway?

“L-Luffy aniki…”

He turns his head to look at a shaking Yosaku.

“I-I-It says that he’s also kind of a ghost. Spirit? GhostSpiritThing- Aniki, he’s dead!”

Luffy smiles wide at that, and laughs. This Sanji guy sounds fun!

~

Usopp and Nami disagree **heavily** when they depart from Cocoyasi Village, screeching as they cling to each other. Usopp starts throwing salt and Nami wails about curses and evil spirits. They do calm down a little when Sanji makes them dinner, though the salt shaker stays suspiciously close to the sniper. Zoro gets a first-hand experience at what it feels like to have a ghost swipe at (through?) you when he scoffs at the notion of a ghost chef. Luffy gets a frying pan (or two), to the face for his thieving fingers.

Suffice to say, mealtimes were a lot livelier than before.

Then they all quickly realise that they can’t see nor hear their new chef so Nami pins up a sheet of paper until they can get a blackboard and some chalk at the next dock. It works, and Sanji’s handwriting is pretty legible.

It does still take some getting used to having kitchen utensils flying around and feeling someone swipe or poke at you to get your attention. Usopp considers attaching several bells around the ship.

~_~_~

Merry feels like bright smiles and syrupy words, tinged with tangerine zest and salt. It’s new and strange, but there’s a warm feeling of **home** on the ship.

_The stars keep spinning as new connections click into place, stringing up an ever growing constellation._

_Suncups gently bloom across her scalp, sending petals scattering from long, electric blue hair. Her hands are tender, yet strong, and her eyes never leave from the approaching horizon. Her soul, that was so unsure in the beginning, grounds itself in a steady tempo; her heart beats like drums, calling for rainfall._

_Cherry blossom scented snow flutters down from shroom covered antlers and onto a blueberry nose and chestnut fur. Glass beakers of oils and chemicals clink against balls of honey-like candy, wrapped in black fabrics. Footsteps turn from one, then two, then six, never to be lonely again. He shines cherry pink as his hooves clap together in a giggling song of glee._

_Wary bitterness wrapped around a soft, sweet core. She chases mysteries that wrap around her head and buzz in her mouth. Salt crusted pages lined with dried flowers and stones carved from a time of long ago. A thousand hands bloom from her crossed arms, but she cries as she reaches out with her own two hands - for wide seas and even wider smiles._

_Mechanical wires clang and whirr into place, biting down rust covered gears. Fizzy sweet drinks bubble into sea foam and burst into clouds of fire. Extravagant fanfares play in tune to the loud, booming ring of a gong. Large, steady hands of metal and blood grip tools to build and tear apart bodies of old ships. He is tender and tough, like the oceans and its ships._

They all breathe with **life**.

~_~_~

Sanji is nine when he watches Going Merry burn and sink.

He thanks Merry for bringing life, much like he would before cooking. She calls out her thanks, for the memories and adventures.

Sanji smiles as he greets the Thousand Sunny with a new nakama on board. He laughs joyfully when Sunny **sings** in return.

_She, too, breathes with life._

~_~_~

“He’s quite young, isn’t he.”

Robin turns to look at the crew’s newest member. His voice is quiet and sad as he stares at the spectacle that is Luffy getting his head hit by a floating frying pan while Usopp and Chopper squeal with laughter. She wonders why he looks like he’s mourning. “Doctor-san is quite skilled for his age. We do worry about him from time to time, but we try our best to take care of him. He’s a very dependable doctor.”

“Ah, I was actually talking about your… interesting cook.” That gets everyone’s attention.

“You can see Sanji?!” Usopp, Luffy, and Chopper all clamour around the tall skeleton. The others look at him in interest.

“I suppose I can. It’s possible that my devil fruit has somehow allowed me the ability to see Sanji-san. We are both dead after all, Yoh-ho-ho-ho!” Though it was still strange that he was the only ghost Brook had gotten to see during his long life.

“How old is he anyway?” Nami interjects with a curious voice. “We never really asked.”

Brook falters, then looks towards the person in question. He guessed that the child was around ten but he wasn’t absolutely sure...

The little cook fidgets in place before holding up nine fingers.

Nine! How young! How tragically young.

“NINE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN **NINE**?!”

Brook startles in surprise. His heart - not that he had one, SKULL JOKE! - almost got caught in his throat! He must have said that out loud.

Whoops.

“I thought he’d be at least twenty! You’re telling me we had an actual **child** on board? Oh god, he’s a ghost child.” Nami splutters in horror while supporting the body of Usopp, who looked like he was about to faint. Actually, he might have already fainted.

_Whoops._

“Oh my.” Came a gentle gasp from Robin.

“He’s younger than me?” Said Chopper, eyes widening in surprise. “But he swears so much!”

“Lil chef bro… what about your childhood!” Franky wails into his handkerchief, comically blowing his nose into it every now and then. “From now on, I’ll be your super best big bro!”

Zoro’s face blanks in thought as the deck continues to erupt in shock.

Luffy is quiet.

~

The crew calms down soon enough, the information finally sinking in. It isn’t pretty.

“He - god this is so messed up - he’s really nine? The guy that’s been throwing around pots and kicks willy-nilly is **nine**?” Usopp says with a trembling voice, now awake and thoroughly shaken. His face is pale.

Silence. A sea-bird cries out.

“How long.” Zoro asks.

Brook looks at the little cook. Sanji, who had been silent and motionless during the uproar, lifts his head towards Brook.

“I think… ten years.” Sanji whispers, hands wringing his waist apron from nervousness. “I dunno, didn’t really count I guess.”

Brook relays his message, watching the crew wince. He mentally adds up the numbers.

“Nineteen, huh, same age as me.” Zoro notes.

Brook tries to imagine the boy in front of him as a nineteen-year-old. Would he have been as tall as the swordsman?

Sanji drags him out of his thoughts with a quiet, “It’s… not really like that. I’m still nine, I’ve just been here for longer than I should have.”

“Brook.” Chopper calls out while tugging at the skeleton’s pants. “Is he hurt anywhere? Any wounds or injuries?”

“No, he looks alright. A little transparent, but otherwise okay.” Come to think of it, Sanji didn’t look like he was visibly hurt or sick. In fact, he looked like a pretty small, but otherwise perfectly healthy boy.

“This isn’t what I looked like when I died.” Sanji answers. “I did look like how my body was when I first became... this, but I changed it. The old man always got a weird look on his face whenever he saw me. Besides, I didn’t die from wounds or anything, so tell Chopper that it’s okay.”

Didn’t die from any wounds? Perhaps he died from a quick-acting poison? Or maybe a health condition that took him during his slumber. Though, judging by Sanji’s expression as he relays the information, that might not be all there is to it.

He wants to ask, but it’d be awfully rude. He can tell that the others feel the same.

Brook suddenly doesn’t know what to say, the air’s thick and he’s not sure a skull joke will help. Sure, **he’s** died but he’s also technically alive now. This is a child who could have lived and joined them as a nakama with a beating heart, but he’s been robbed of his life and-

“How he died doesn’t matter now.”

Several pairs of eyes snap towards the captain of the ship.

“Luffy!” Nami exclaims in surprise, the others mirroring her expression. He crosses his arms.

“Sanji can tell us if he wants, like how Brook did. But if he doesn’t then it’s okay, cause it doesn’t matter. Sanji’s with us right now, as our cook and nakama. It doesn’t matter how he died, cause he’s still living, with us.”

No one speaks. No one knows what to say to that.

Then the captain’s face stretches into a smile, wide and true. “Anyways! Sanji, I’m hungry! Give me meat!”

Sanji stares at his captain with swirling eyes, hands twitching as his form briefly warps and cracks. Brook catches a glimpse of torn fabric and bony limbs. He hears the sound of crashing waves.

A soft hum leaks past Nami’s lecture towards her whining captain and slips into his ear(hole). He feels a sudder run through his bones as a single eye stares right at his ribcage. 

_What does Sanji see that Brook cannot?_

As if he heard his question, the little ghost says, “You sound like blackcurrants and... xylophone pianos.”

Well, now he just wants to hear what a xylophone piano sounds like. Not that he had any ears to hear with, Yoh-ho-ho-ho-ho!

~_~_~

Several days later, there’s a letter left on the dining table, addressed to the others in black ink.

Robin reads out a tale of two, stranded on a rock with little to eat. The story tells its readers about 85 days in the sun and rain, of moldy rations that lasted for a mere 25. Since it is but a simple story, it leaves out little silly details like the tummy aches and rainwater feasts - it's been years after all, it doesn’t matter anymore (the others fill in the blanks anyway). It ends with a one-legged man and a dead child, boarding a ship that came a little too late.

The story ends there. It should’ve ended there.

~

Sanji is dead, and the dead cannot live, but...

~

The skies are littered with stars that trail behind Luffy when he, with the help of Brook, finds Sanji crouched in the pantry. He places his hat in front of the child, and sits.

“It’s not over yet. You’re still alive.”

Is he? Is he really alive? He’s nothing but a spirit, so can he be considered alive? 

Is he allowed to live when he’s already dead?

_He shines, not like gold or any other precious jewels. He shines like sunlight and the dawn of a tomorrow._

“Hey, Sanji.

 **Live with us.** ”

He looks up at a pair of eyes, feels them burn into his translucent skin and Sanji cries and cries. His hands leave his hair to cradle an old, but oh so treasured straw hat.

~

He is dead, has been for the past ten years and he knows that, but

He wants to live.

**_“Live with us.”_ **

He will live.

If not for himself, then for **them**.

~_~_~

By now, many know about the infamous crew; the notorious Straw Hats.

A gang of misfit pirates, sailing aboard wild, turbulent seas. A crew that seems to defy odds and fights against forces that they, by all means, should have lost to or died fighting against.

Then again, the crew itself isn’t normal by any means, even by pirate standards. 

Eight crew members, all wildly unique and different in personalities and abilities. A rubber captain, a demon swordsman, a lying sniper, a thieving navigator, a tanuki (REINDEER!!!) doctor, a devilish archaeologist, a cyborg shipwright and an undead musician. 

One would think, _one would THINK,_ that it wouldn’t work – nothing would work with a crew composed of such strange and explosively different members. But they make it work, in their own weird way.

But there’s something else strange about them, the Straw Hats. Sometimes, pirates, villagers, and marines alike will whisper to each other, _hey, did you hear that the Straw-Hats aren’t alone? Did you hear about their enemies that suddenly fall down or get hit out of nowhere? What about the blue ghost-fire that burns bright when you get too close to one of the crewmembers? Did you hear that even when the ship is left alone, it’s **protected**._

No one knows where the spirit is from or who it is.

Devil fruits are off the table; Seastone does nothing to kill the blue flames.

 _Maybe it’s the spirit of a former crewmate,_ whisper the pirates.

 _Perhaps it is the spirit of the ship itself,_ murmur the shipwrights.

 _It must be a spell from one of their many voyages,_ mutter the civilians.

They do not get an answer.

~

In the midst of all the hubbub, the owner of the Baratie laughs in his restaurant of the sea. He rubs his sore peg-leg and remembers the cruel ocean, a large rock, and a boy.

~_~_~

While the sea is beautiful and kind, it is also cunning and **cruel** when it can be.

It gives and it takes.

Such is fate.

~_~_~

 **He** comes again.

Horror fills his entire spectral body when Zoro is reduced to nothing but dusted remains of cracked gold and basil covered ivory with a swipe of Kuma’s hand.

His desperate kicks phase through as his concentration fizzes away. He cannot think of a good strategy to somehow defeat this monster of a man. He screams at Kuma to stop.

Kuma doesn’t hear him. He cannot hear him.

Sanji is helpless as he watches everyone he loves disappear with a _POP!_ And all he can think is no _nonono,_ _please don’t take them away please don’t leave me alone. Take me too, take me to where they are too. Let me be with them PLEASE-_

Sanji is nine and dead, when he cries with fistfuls of hair as Luffy vanishes before his eyes.

He is nine, and he feels like he’s dying all over again as he wails, alone and unheard.

~_~_~

_A flame flickers out and the universe stills._

_And then? Blackholes swallow and quakes with newfound power._

_And then? Soldiers and pirates scurry around as everything tilts._

_And then? Red seeps into white. Everything stops._

_And then?_

_The world **explodes** into a new age, marked with spilt blood and tears._

~_~_~

 ~~3D~~ 2Y

The symbol blares in his head.

Two years. They’ll meet up in two years. That’s okay, Sanji can wait.

He’ll train. He’ll get stronger for his crew.

He’ll become someone his nakama can depend on. Someone they can trust to protect them. 

Sanji quickly wipes away any stray tears, and gets to work.

After all, he has to live on if he wants to meet them again.

~_~_~

It’s a lot harder, training alone. Even when he was starting out, he at least had Zeff to help him and keep him company. Sanji reminds himself that it’ll be okay, because he won’t be alone forever.

So Sanji trains. He experiments and finds and stretches the limits of his abilities; there was a surprising amount of new things he could learn about himself. Souls, ghosts, and spirits were all so loosely connected, yet so different.

He finds that he can tie himself to Sunny, giving him the ability to connect to the ship and warp there at any moment. So Sanji drifts to other nearby islands, checking up on Sunny every so often so that she isn’t lonely. He starts picking up tricks and new recipes from numerous (unknowing) people. He finds a library on a small island down South, and spends a couple days sneakily flipping through several books during closed hours.

He marks the days in a calendar left in the kitchen of Sunny, and thinks back to a time, back when his body was alive but dying. He remembers carving tally marks on a large rock with stones and pebbles. _Ah_ , Sanji thinks as he draws another large X with a red pen, _he marked down the days back then too. Back then, he wanted to live as well._

~_~_~

Sanji stumbles upon a pink island with feminine souls and sees a face he’s seen printed on newspapers during the **incident**. He lingers out of curiosity but stays when he takes a good look at their cuisine.

Iva wakes up the next morning with a note on his bedside table and _of_ _course_ Straw Hat-Boy’s mystery chef would be a ghost, what was he expecting?

~_~_~

It’s a long, two years.

~_~_~

Time has hardly done anything to change Sanji physically. He’s still a fairly thin boy dressed in kitchen clothes. His hair’s still swept to one side, showing a swirled brow crowned on top of a single, bluish-grey eye. He is still a child.

But time has changed his nakama.

There’s new scars and stylistic changes. Longer hair and thicker limbs. They’re bigger, stronger. Power courses through veins and their hands are rough from work. They’ve grown older.

_Their souls have changed as well. New scents and pops of colour and flavours that burst and roar. Sanji tastes joy and delight, hardships and sorrow._

But, even though the years have changed them, they’re still the same group of mixed misfits and rebels, ready for whatever adventures their captain searches for. Sanji reaches in and feels their thrumming souls, all so precious and unique and eager to set sail out on the blue, _blue_ sea.

“Of course.” Sanji quietly says to himself as Brook - ninety years old and somewhat alive - turns to him and lets out a hearty _Yoh-ho-ho-ho!_

_Blackcurrants and grapes, aged into a chilling tune. He is Old, and he is like him, but also like Them. Sometimes, he sings songs not meant for solos, bones rattling in a quintet to unplucked strings. Coloured piano keys ring, sending vibrations into the sea. He gets a faint call from far, far away._

“Sanji! Meat!”

_The faint touch of smoke clings to Luffy, his captain. He crackles like a bonfire, bright and warm._

~_~_~

Sanji is still nine and dead, but he smiles wide, heart achingly full, and thinks with absolute conviction that he could **_live_ **happy like this.

~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, thank you for reading this haha.  
> Honestly, this au kinda spiraled out of control.
> 
> Fun facts:  
> • While salt is known to ward off or cleanse ghosts and stuff, it has no effect on Sanji. He got pretty mad at Usopp more for wasting perfectly good salt  
> • Sanji’s diable jambe is now ghost fire, and they’re blue with hints of purple, like will-o-wisps. Anyone who doesn’t know about Sanji usually thinks that his fire moves are Onibi, Japanese ghost lights  
> • Straw Hat pirates now have a reputation for being haunted, hooray!  
> • Sanji is very much still a nine year old, a Childe. He just happens to have existed for 19/21 years.  
> • Sanji still makes prettier desserts for the ladies and doesn’t kick at them like he does with the boyos, but that’s more out of politeness because his dad- I mean, Zeff Told Him To. He thinks girls are generally kind and boys are usually Mean Until Proven Otherwise (largely due to his childhood trauma, big f you to Judge) but that’s about it.  
> • He’s a lot more attached to his crew because he is a Childe with not as much social interactions and has now been given a nice family and he loves them very much. He will Live for them now.  
> • He doesn’t have a bounty cause no one knows about a ninth crew member, but he gets a legendary reputation as a wicked protective ghost so HAH
> 
> Feel free to ask questions about this au and ghost/spirit sanji! I’d be happy to answer them.  
> This AU might turn into a series lol  
> Let me know what you think about this fic as well! Give me a heads up about the writing or any tags I should add in.  
> Hope you all have a lovely day/night!


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